K-8 School Quality, Choice & Access in Philadelphia
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K-8 School Quality, Choice & Access in Philadelphia presented by the PHILADELPHIA SCHOOL PARTNERSHIP January 13, 2021 1 INTRODUCTION 3 Almost half of K-8 4 There are more than Purpose students attend schools 29,000 unfilled seats in This report shows trends in student achievement, academic growth of choice. low-achieving schools. ➽ In this report, a “school of choice” ➽ Over half of these unfilled seats are and enrollment for public schools across the city of Philadelphia. means any public school a student located in schools in North Philadelphia. Most of the analyses in the report are broken down by 13 regions selects that is not his or her assigned neighborhood school. If private schools throughout the city—the same regions the School District uses for its were included, more than half of K-8 students attend schools of choice. At Comprehensive School Planning Review (CSPR). the high school level, 86 percent of all The purpose is to support families, communities, school leaders and students attend schools of choice. policy makers as they consider: ➽ Students are more likely to opt out of their neighborhood school if the school ➽ schools for their children is low-achieving. ➽ school admissions and enrollment policies ➽ Students in North and Northeast Philadelphia are more likely to attend District: ➽ expansions, renovations or closures of school buildings their neighborhood school, while Non-Neighborhood students in West, South and Southwest ● Philadelphia are less likely to attend their neighborhood school. ➽ Over half of high-achieving schools are Key Findings special admission or charter schools and do not have a catchment boundary. 1 Six of every 10 2 Encouragingly, most 15.7% Philadelphia students of the city’s low- ● Neighborhood School attend a low- achieving schools 52.4% achieving school. are demonstrating ➽ Black and Hispanic students are consistent academic 48% of overrepresented in the City’s 28.4% lowest-achieving schools, and Elementary White and Asian American students growth. are overrepresented in the highest- ➽ There are 80 schools with low Students achieving schools. achievement and high acacemic growth; seven of these schools Choose a School ➽ The highest-achieving schools ● improved by 10 or more percentage are predominantly located in Other Than points on state achievement tests Not in Central Philadelphia, Northeast over the past five years. Philadelphia Philadelphia and South Their Assigned 3.5% Philadelphia. The lowest-achieving ● schools are predominantly Neighborhood Charter: located in Northwest Philadelphia, School Non-Neighborhood Southwest Philadelphia and Olney/North Philadelphia. 2 3 CONTENTS MAP 1 SECTION 1 looks at enrollment in high-achieving schools. The primary data source is schoolwide results on 2019 state math and reading tests that were given to all students in grades 3 through 8 8. (Tests were not administered in 2020 because of the pandemic.) SECTION 2 looks at school academic growth. The primary data source is the same, but instead of measuring how high students scored, growth shows to what degree students in a school made more academic progress from one year to the next than the average student in the state. SECTION 3 looks at school choice patterns. While politicians often talk about “choice” for 11 13 particular types of schools, such as public charter or private schools, there are many ways for families to choose schools. Since this report focuses only on public schools (district and charter), choice here refers to students enrolling in any public school other than their assigned neighborhood (catchment) school 9 where they live. For some, this means choosing a neighborhood school that is not in their assigned school 5 attendance boundary. For others, this means a citywide, special admission or charter school. 12 2 SECTION 4 looks at schools’ availability of seats in comparison to enrollment. How many 3 students can a school hold, and how many of those seats are actually filled? 5 6 7 Median Family Income • $2,499.00 – $42,485.00 1 • $42,485.01 – $71,633.00 PHILADELPHIA K-8 ENROLLMENT (2019) • $71,633.01 – $109,271.00 • $109,271.01 – $161,438.00 10 • $161,438.01 – $250,001.00 By School Type By Race/Ethnicity 4 Public School Type Enrollment 60% 40% 20% 0% District Neighborhood 85,567 Asian 7% American District Special Admit 2,283 52% Black District NEIGHBORHOODS/REGIONS Citywide 1,486 Renaissance 21% Hispanic These regions align with the School District of Philadelphia’s Comprehensive School Planning Review Charter 12,620 (CSPR) regions. The regions are identified by a number, with the names of a few included neighborhoods Charter also listed to help with identification. Citywide 36,182 14% White 1. Point Breeze/Queen Village (South Philadelphia) 8. Fox Chase/Northeast Philadelphia Not In Philadelphia/ Cyber Charters 5,114 Multiracial/ 2. Fairhill (North Philadelphia) 9. Frankford/Oxford Circle (Northeast Philadelphia) 6% Other 3. Overbrook/Wynnefield (West Philadelphia) 10. Southwest Philadelphia Total K-8 Enrollment 143,252 4. Grays Ferry/South Philadelphia 11. Northwest Philadelphia 5. Kensington 12. Olney/North Philadelphia 6. Belmont/University City (West Philadelphia) 13. Mayfair/Tacony (Northeast Philadelphia) © Philadelphia School Partnership. This report would not have been possible without the support of Heather Cope. Heather took our sporadic thoughts and incomplete ideas and turned them into a linear and coherent report. Additional gratitude to Jamie Leary for his graphic design work and Taylor Harrington at 7. Central Philadelphia PolicyMap for her mapping expertise. Lastly, we thank the subject matter experts who contributed their time to reviewing our work and providing critical feedback. 4 5 PREFACE Why This Data? When considering school quality, there are many factors to consider: safety, technology, teacher quality, social and emotional learning, special education and extracurricular activities, to name just a few. Howev- er, when comparing schools, a challenge is that easily comparable data for many of these attributes does not exist on a school by school basis. The state achievement tests, which are conducted at every school, do allow for comparisons between schools: on how well students achieve and to what degree students grow academically from one year to the next. State achievement data also align to what families value in a school. In 2013 the Fordham Institute surveyed 2,000 parents nationwide for a report entitled, “What Parents Want.” Far and away the No. 1 priority parents wanted in a school was “strong core curriculum in reading and mathematics.” This was true for every group, whether broken down by race, income or other factors. Other surveys suggest that some families consider location, a safe environment, or extracurricular activities as crucial. Even in these surveys, however, academic quality is one of the top priorities for the majority of parents. Why This Report? Many families likely would prefer a great school right across the street from their home. But for most, perceived quality in reading and math outranks location in importance, as the surveys and Section 3 of The pandemic has put a spotlight on layers of inequity that stifle neighborhoods in Philadelphia and this report make clear. other American cities. As one example, forced school closures have highlighted the inequities of the “digital divide.” Census data have shown that the percentage of households with internet access varies widely by neighborhood, from above 80 percent in many places to below 50 per- cent in North and West Philadelphia. Similarly, access to high-achieving Why Must Readers Take Care? schools also varies widely in Philadelphia, by region, class and race. There The aim is to help families are many reasons. One is the longstanding practice of assigning students There is no one best kind of school. Every student has different needs. There are higher and lower achiev- to schools based on where they live, which has disproportionately affected ing students in every school. No school can be fully represented by a dot on a map. No piece or set of data and communities in the certain families, particularly those in low-income communities. can tell a complete story. Families have to gather as much information as they can, and make decisions or city understand and Now, as city and school leaders prepare to adapt to new limits and chal- recommendations they decide are the best for them. lenges, there is an opportunity to rethink the old limitations. Recently, This report is intended to add to the data sources which already exist, in the hope that readers can gain discuss how well public the School District of Philadelphia launched an equity coalition, with a fuller understanding. plans to address a number of inequitable practices in city schools, includ- The maps and tables included here report only on schools serving kindergarten through 8th grade, be- schools and enrollment ing selective admissions policies. Last year the District embarked on a cause the underlying data sources are consistent. Were high schools to be included, because their students citywide planning process to help design schools and policies that meet take different assessments than younger students, comparisons between schools would be harder to make. policies are serving them the educational needs of changing student populations. That process, named the Comprehensive School Planning Review (CSPR), revolves and their neighbors. around both community engagement and data. This report aims to help families and communities in the city under- stand how well public schools and enrollment policies are serving them and their neighbors. The school achievement, growth and enrollment data included here, broken down by region, family income and race, can be a resource for policy makers and participants in the CSPR and the District’s equity coalition. The data displayed in these pages (and at www.philaschoolpartnership.org/schoolquality) consist of assessments of student achievement, student academic growth and student enrollment on a school-by-school basis.